Online Preaching

Peter warned about false teachers – they were there when Peter wrote these words, and he warned that they would be there among “you” – the readers of the letter.

And he points out the obvious – that they will teach wrong doctrine – Peter calls them “damnable heresies”.

One thing I have found, is that today there appears to be so much more opportunity for these false teachers to influence people.

The “online” environment gives all sorts of people access to huge audiences that were just not possible for such crackpots prior to faceplant, forums, guggle+, and other electronic publishing.

And these guys (and gals) seem to be able to find others who like what they are saying and fall into line and encourage them in their false teachings.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not against faceplant and guggle+ etc (I am, after all, doing this blog!) – I am on a forum where I see heaps of this, and I see faceplant (not on it myself) and hear about the rubbish that some people post up.

But as with everything, there needs to be discernment.

No, it is the ease with which these false teachers can find their way into the hearts and minds of people that I am warning about.

There are those who make up websites to promote their “out of context” understandings, and those who infiltrate forums to promote their false teaching, and those who just post this sort of rubbish on their social media panels, and people read them – either by coming across the site whilst searching for something, or it comes up in their feed on the page, or it gets discussed on their favourite forum.

The problem for most is not those who are blatantly wrong – most even half grown Christians can pick the serious rubbish. The problem is that some of these guys are pretty close in some of their stuff, but are wonky around the edges.

That wonkiness is presented as peripheral, but in reality it is stemmed in something deeper.

And people get drawn in by the decent stuff, and then just swallow the wonky bits because they like the guy – and most of the time they don’t even notice the wonky bits on the way, because they are caught up with the guy.

It can be really hard to pick some of this stuff.

That is why it is even more important today than ever before that we follow in the footsteps of the Bereans:

They searched the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so – they checked out what they were told by looking at what the Scriptures said.

These people didn’t take anything that anybody said for truth until they had checked to see if it fitted with what God said.

And if you look at the context, these people did not even trust Paul on what he said – the passage is relating directly to what Paul said – that is what they checked out.

So if you come across any website, forum, blog, – even on line preaching – then by all means have a look, but don’t accept anything ANYONE says as God’s truth until you have checked out what the Bible says about what that person is saying.

And that includes me – it especially includes me, because I am just a man and I can make mistakes.

I try to rightly divide God’s Word, but I won’t always get it right.

If you are checking out what I say, and I say something wrong then two things can result – you are not led astray by my error, and you can help me to grow by pointing me back to the study of God’s Word.